Porn Riots in Indonesia

Official Web site hacked over porn ban

Fri Mar 28, 11:07 AM

JAKARTA (Reuters) - Hackers have defaced the Web site of Indonesia's information ministry in response to a government move to restrict access to pornographic material on the Internet, an official said on Friday.

Indonesia's parliament on Tuesday passed a new information bill that criminalizes the transmission of pornographic material on the Web.

The Southeast Asian country has had a vigorous debate over pornography in recent years, exposing deep divisions in the Muslim-majority nation.

Hackers on Thursday posted a message on the information ministry's Web site (http:/www.depkominfo.go.id) saying: "Prove that the law has not been made to cover government stupidity."

The message was accompanied by a mocked-up photograph of a local information technology expert, who has been advising the government on the new law, depicted with a bare chest.

Screenshots of the hacked page were posted on the Detik.com news Web site and a cyber chat forum.

The message had been removed and the Web site was now running normally, said Gatot Broto, an official at the ministry.

The ministry said the law was a response to concerns in society about the negative impact of pornographic and violent sites as more Indonesians gain access to the Internet.

Under the law, anyone found guilty of transmitting pornographic material, false news or racial and religious hate messages on the Internet could face up to six years in prison or a fine of 1 billion rupiah ($109,000).

Indonesia's parliament has yet to pass a controversial pornography bill, which aims to shield the young from pornographic material and lewd acts.

Earlier draft versions contained provisions that could jail people for kissing in public and criminalize many forms of art or traditional culture that hinge on sensuality, sparking criticism it could curb freedoms and hurt Indonesia's tolerant tradition.

(Reporting by Ahmad Pathoni; Editing by Ed Davies and Alex Richardson)

Orthodox Cave Cult

Russian officials say talks renewed with cave sect

Sat Mar 29, 7:05 AM

MOSCOW (AFP) - Russian officials on Saturday said they had redoubled efforts to persuade 28 members of a doomsday sect holed up in a cave to come out, after seven others ended their five-month confinement.

Oleg Melnichenko, deputy governor of the Penza region, some 500 kilometres (310 miles) southeast of Moscow, said on national television that the seven had come out after conditions deteriorated in the cave, where they had lived since early November.

"The state of the cave is rather bad because it started filling with melted ice. Part of it has collapsed," said Melnichenko.

"In the interests of the people's security we have to negotiate with them in such a way that they trust us. We don't plan to trick them," he said.

Another regional official, Alexander Yelatontsev, said the seven who had come out were in good health and had given assurances about the state of those inside, including a girl aged one year and eight months.

Television pictures showed female sect members in head scarves speaking with those in the cave through a fissure in the hillside -- a barren landscape after months of winter snow.

The sect members, including citizens of both Russia and Belarus, barricaded themselves into the cave near the village of Nikolskoye in November to await the Apocalypse, which they originally calculated would come in May 2008.

Black-clad Orthodox priests have joined local authorities in trying to persuade the members to leave, so far with only limited success.

Earlier this week, the sect members said they would emerge on Orthodox Easter Sunday, April 27, according to Melnichenko.

They had previously threatened to blow themselves up with gas canisters if anyone tried to force them out.

Officials said they had plentiful reserves of food and water and were able to cook inside the cave.

Despite the rising influence of the Orthodox church, unofficial sects have rapidly grown in popularity in Russia since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.

The leader of the Penza sect, Pyotr Kuznetsov, has not joined his followers in the cave and has been detained in a psychiatric hospital, sometimes emerging to join negotiations.

7 Russian Cult Members Emerge From Cave

By MIKE ECKEL – 1 day ago

MOSCOW (AP) — Seven women who had holed up in a cave for months with other members of a Russian cult awaiting the end of the world emerged Friday night and were being treated by emergency workers, regional officials said.

More than two dozen others remained behind but were expected to come out as early as Saturday, the governor's office said.

About 35 members of the Christian cult entered the cave near the village of Nikolskoye, 400 miles southeast of Moscow, in early November to await the end of the world, which they expected in May. They threatened to detonate gas canisters if police tried to remove them by force.

The vice governor of the Penza region, Oleg Melnichenko, said in televised comments that the seven women came out voluntarily, carrying satchels with their belongings. He said the cult leader, the self-declared prophet Pyotr Kuznetsov, was brought from a local psychiatric hospital to help persuade the women to leave.

He said the women walked on their own nearly a mile to a prayer house, where emergency workers were talking with them, the RIA-Novosti news agency reported.

"There is no reason to urgently hospitalize any of them," Melnichenko was quoted as saying.

Another official in the governor's office, who gave only his first name, Alexander, said the other cult members still in the cave were expected to give up their vigil, perhaps by Saturday. He said four children, reportedly under age 2, were among those in the cave.

Melnichenko said officials feared that melting snow could eventually lead to the collapse of the cave, but there was no immediate threat to those who remained behind.

Officials had repeatedly enlisted the help of priests from the Orthodox Church in an effort to persuade the group to leave, communicating mainly through a small chimney pipe that poked up through the snowy hillside.

Earlier this week, Melnichenko told reporters that some of the cult members had indicated they might leave the cave on Orthodox Easter, which is April 27.

Kuznetsov has been charged with setting up a religious organization associated with violence. Earlier this week, officials said they had seized literature that included what appeared to be extremist rhetoric. He has been confined to a psychiatric hospital since November.

An engineer from a devout family, Kuznetsov, who goes by the title of Father Pyotr, declared himself a prophet several years ago. He left his family and established the True Russian Orthodox Church and recruited followers in Russia and Belarus.

He reportedly told followers that, in the afterlife, they would judge whether others deserved heaven or hell.

Followers were not allowed to watch television, listen to the radio or handle money, Russian media reported.

Mass Violence in Mozambique

Vigilante justice rocks once quiet Mozambique

Thu Mar 6, 4:00 AM

The robbers struck again during the early morning hours of Feb. 23 – the latest in a string of violent home invasions in this normally calm city.

Within days, at least two suspected bandits had been lynched, the police station had been damaged, a child had been shot, and Chimoio was added to the list of Mozambican cities that have been rocked by riots in recent weeks.

In early February, more than 250 people were injured and at least four killed during riots in Mozambique's capital, Maputo, after the government upped the cost of the minibus taxis that many rely upon for transportation.

In Beira, the country's second largest city, six suspected criminals have been lynched this past year, in riotlike conditions. And then there was the Chimoio riot – a disturbance that continued into last week with at least four more lynchings, including one of a man accused of stealing corn from a farmer's field.

Rising crime and vigilante justice are quickly becoming serious problems for this donor darling, long considered a stable, postconflict African success story.

The violence reflects growing inequality and increasing mistrust of authorities, observers say – sentiments often hidden beneath widely praised macroeconomic figures showing consistent growth.

"When people do not have trust in the system, when people do not feel that they are part and parcel of problem-solving, they organize themselves," says Themba Masuku, a senior researcher at the Centre for Violence and Reconciliation in Johannesburg, South Africa, who has studied vigilante justice. "And they take the law into their own hands."

"I've been predicting violence for a couple of years now," says Joseph Hanlon, a scholar who has researched and written about Mozambique for 30 years. "The poor are just being squeezed…. It's not a revolution, but it is something about people under huge stress lashing out."

Mozambique has been stable since 1992, when fighting factions agreed to end a civil war that had raged since soon after Portuguese colonialists left 17 years earlier. It has also followed International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank regulations closely – a fact Mr. Hanlon says helps explain why Mozambique gets more donor aid than any of its neighbors.

In a recent report about Mozambique, World Bank economists say that the country "has been astonishingly successful at restoring growth and improving welfare."

But the country is still among the poorest in the world. Almost 40 percent of people interviewed in a recent government survey said their living situations had worsened in recent years.

"[Mozambicans are] used to really rapid and high growth, and if not everybody gets that rapid and high growth that's a problem," says Louise Fox, the chief author of a 2008 World Bank report, adding that the government needs to become more responsive – especially to poorer residents.

"The government is not working," says Zacarias Milicia, a retired Army major who says his neighborhood in Chimoio was targeted by the thieves. "People capture a thief and deliver him to the police station and the police will free him after a few hours. The population is not happy."

In Chimoio and Beira, the main targets of the mobs were suspected criminals. In Chimoio, after police tried to protect some of the suspects, the crowd rushed the police station and lit police cars on fire. So far the Mozambican riots have had relatively low death tolls.

• Stephanie Hanes is a 2008 Alicia Patterson journalism fellow.

Virgin Hunters

French couple who 'hunted virgins' go on trial for seven murders

2 hours, 45 minutes ago

CHARLEVILLE-MEZIERES, France (AFP) - The parents of young women and girls allegedly murdered by a self-confessed French serial killer heard in court Thursday how he and his wife made a pact to hunt for virgins.

The victims' families, as well as women who survived Michel Fourniret's alleged attacks, sat opposite the accused and his wife Monique Olivier on the first day of the trial for the kidnap, rape and murder of seven young women and girls.

Fourniret, 65, and Olivier, 59, sat with bowed heads behind bullet-proof glass as court officials read out a litany of horrific crimes that began in 1987 and only ended in 2003 when a 13-year-old Belgian girl managed to escape Fourniret's clutches and alert the police.

The girl told Belgian investigators that Fourniret had boasted to her that he was "worse than" Marc Dutroux, Belgium's most notorious criminal, who was sentenced to life in prison in 2004 for child kidnappings, rapes and murders.

Letters seized by investigators showed that Fourniret, while in jail for sexual assault in the 1980s, made a pact with Olivier "that in exchange for the murder of Olivier's first husband, she would find him a virgin to fulfill his fantasies," a court official said.

Fourniret, dubbed the "Ogre of the Ardennes," is accused of the rape and murder of six young women or teenage girls in France and one in Belgium. He referred to his victims as "membranes on legs," the court heard.

The bespectacled former electrician initially refused to confirm his identity in court and held up for the presiding judge a piece of paper that said: "My lips are sealed if there is no closed door hearing."

He then gave the judge a rolled document tied with a ribbon.

"This is an explanation I intended to read out to explain why I am boycotting the court," he said.

Olivier, who spoke only to confirm her identity and name her defence lawyers, is on trial for one of the same murders and complicity in four of his other alleged crimes whose victims were aged between 12 and 21 and who were either strangled, stabbed with a screwdriver or shot.

The court heard statements -- which often conflicted -- made to investigators by the pair that after helping Fourniret trap girls, Olivier would sometimes insert a finger into their vaginas to see if they were still virgins.

The court also heard that a separate investigation is under way to determine whether Fourniret killed British student Joanna Parrish in France in 1990.

A further probe is also to be carried out into whether he killed the girlfriend of a bank robber he met in prison.

He is believed to have tricked that woman into showing him where her boyfriend's loot was buried and then murdered her before stealing the money and using it to buy a chateau in the Ardennes region of France and a house in Belgium.

Hundreds of locals from Charleville-Mezieres queued in pouring rain for a seat in the court in this dreary town whose only previous claim to fame was as the birthplace of the 19th-century poet Arthur Rimbaud.

Fourniret, dressed in a blue jumper and an open-necked shirt, eventually nodded in agreement when Judge Gilles Latapie again asked him to confirm his name when the trial opened.

Fourniret and Olivier, dressed in a purple jacket and a white polo neck jumper, then sat stony-faced for the rest of the day as officials took a preliminary run through the evidence against them.

They began with the 1987 murder of 17-year-old Isabelle Laville in the central French region of Burgundy.

Once the couple had lured her into their car, Fourniret "grabbed her by the hair and asked her was she a virgin, and she replied in the affirmative," according to a statement Olivier made to investigators and read out in court.

The girl was then drugged and taken to their home, where, after Olivier had performed oral sex on him to get excited, he raped her, then strangled her and later threw her body down a well.

The other alleged murders listed by officials followed a similar pattern.

The trial is set to last two months.

Twin Circus Slaves

Circus "slave" forced to swim with piranhas

Tue Mar 25, 3:57 PM

ROME (Reuters) - Police rescued two teenage Bulgarian sisters from a circus in southern Italy which forced one of them to swim with flesh-eating piranhas for the amusement of guests, police said.

While the 19-year-old sister swam in a transparent tank, the younger, 16-year-old was forced into a container where the circus staff tossed snakes at her. She was injured by one of the snakes, police said.

Police arrested three Italians who ran the circus south of Naples, in Salerno province, accusing them of forcing the sisters to live in virtual slavery.

The women were paid 100 euros ($155.8) per week and lived in a trailer that had previously been used to transport animals, they said.

(Writing by Phil Stewart; Editing by Caroline Drees)

Bimbette vs Parentkind

Outrage at 'bimbo' website

Tue Mar 25, 9:16 AM

LONDON (AFP) - An online game that encourages prepubescent girls to contemplate breast enlargement surgery and extreme crash diets to achieve a 'perfect figure' has been criticised by worried parent groups and health experts.

The 'Miss Bimbo' game is aimed at girls aged 9 to 16 and has attracted 200,000 members since opening its British site in February. The website sparked controversy when it was introduced in France, where it attracted 1.2 million players.

The young girls are encouraged to monitor the weight, wardrobe, wealth and happiness of their virtual character to create "the coolest, richest and most famous bimbo in the world." The girls compete to earn "bimbo dollars" which can use to buy larger breasts, diet pills, nip-and-tuck surgery, sexy lingerie and nightclub outfits.

Healthcare professionals have warned that website encourages anorexia and bulimia by advising the girls to remain "waif thin".

"A lot of children will get caught up with the extremely damaging and appalling messages." Dee Dawson -- the medical director of the Rhodes Farm Clinic, which treats girls who suffer eating disorders -- told The Times.

The Parentkind group also condemned the site and warned that "Childrens innocence should be protected as far as possible "

A spokesman for the parents' group added: "It depends on the mindset of the child but the danger is that after playing the game , some will then aspire to have breast operations and take diet pills.

The Miss Bimbo site was created by French entrepreneur Nicholas Jacquart, who has moved to South London to promote the website in Britain.

After the common market, parks become public toilets, speaking becomes spitting

Urinating men, hamburgers light up poll ads
Thu Mar 20, 11:25 AM
By Ben
Blanchard

TAIPEI (Reuters) - Grinning Chinese peasants, urinating men,
hamburgers and fried chicken -- with Taiwan's presidential election Saturday,
both candidates are blanketing newspapers with increasingly creative, even odd,
adverts.

The ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), whose candidate Frank
Hsieh has trailed in the polls, is appealing to electors not to vote for the
opposition Nationalists, lest it open the floodgates to what it has depicted as
dirty and uncultured mainland Chinese coming to Taiwan.

Nationalist candidate Ma Ying-jeou has proposed a "common market" with China, but the DPP has attacked this by saying it would let hordes of Chinese into Taiwan, bringing down wages and making it harder for Taiwanese to find jobs.
"After the common market, parks become public toilets, speaking becomes spitting," reads one DPP newspaper advert, featuring a picture of three men urinating in public.

"In Italy, many Chinese tourists have been sent to the police for urinating on the side of the street," it adds. "People of Taiwan, are you ready?"

Though Taiwanese can easily go to China, it is hard for Chinese to get to Taiwan, a legacy of decades of mutual mistrust.

While sharing a common language and culture, political relations are tense. The two sides have been ruled separately since defeated Nationalist forces fled to the island at the end of a civil war with the Communists in 1949. But China still claims Taiwan as its own.

Another DPP advert opposes the recognition of Chinese scholastic qualifications in Taiwan, saying China has too many unemployed graduates who would flood into the island.

In any case, it adds, forged documents are easily available in China. "I'm
also a Peking University graduate!" it shows a grinning Chinese peasant, poorly
dressed and holding up a graduation certificate, as saying.

The Nationalists, by contrast, have gone for a fast-food theme to push their economic platform, calling the fried chicken and hamburgers in their adverts "a happy economic meal" and "a happy social welfare meal," among other things. "The best quality beef," one advert reads, next to a picture of an enormous hamburger stacked six patties high, with each featuring a bullet point outlining one part of the Nationalists' economic manifesto.

Another shows a large bucket of fried chicken, with a picture on the side of a smiling cartoon version of Ma, and more promises of a brighter future, each using a play on the Chinese word for "chicken."

"Bye bye to hunger," it says. "A free or subsidized nutritional lunch for disadvantaged schoolchildren."

(Editing by Nick Macfie and David Fox)

Maybe Tomorrow

Sheriff: Kansas woman sat on boyfriend's toilet for 2 years; didn't want to leave

Wed Mar 12, 2:49 PM

By Roxana Hegeman, The Associated Press

WICHITA, Kan. - Deputies say a woman in western Kansas became stuck on her boyfriend's toilet after sitting on it for two years.

Ness County Sheriff Bryan Whipple said it appeared the 35-year-old Ness City woman's skin had grown around the seat. She initially refused emergency medical services but was finally convinced by responders and her boyfriend that she needed to be checked out at a hospital.

"We pried the toilet seat off with a pry bar and the seat went with her to the hospital," Whipple said. "The hospital removed it."

Whipple said investigators planned to present their report Wednesday to the county attorney, who will determine whether any charges should be filed against the woman's 36-year-old boyfriend.

"She was not glued. She was not tied. She was just physically stuck by her body," Whipple said. "It is hard to imagine. I still have a hard time imagining it myself."

He told investigators he brought his girlfriend food and water, and asked her every day to come out of the bathroom.

"And her reply would be, 'Maybe tomorrow,"' Whipple said. "According to him, she did not want to leave the bathroom."

The boyfriend called police on Feb. 27 to report that "there was something wrong with his girlfriend," Whipple said, adding that he never explained why it took him two years to call.

Police found the clothed woman sitting on the toilet, her sweat pants down to her mid-thigh. She was "somewhat disoriented," and her legs looked like they had atrophied, Whipple said.

"She said that she didn't need any help, that she was OK and did not want to leave," he said.

She was taken to a hospital.

Whipple said she has refused to co-operate with medical providers or law enforcement investigators.

Authorities said they didn't know if she was mentally or physically disabled.

Police have declined to release the couple's names, but the house where authorities say the incident happened is listed in public records as the residence of Kory McFarren.

No-one answered his home phone number.

The case has been the buzz Ness City, said James Ellis, a neighbour.

"I don't think anybody can make any sense out of it," he said.

Ellis said he had known the woman since she was a child but that he had not seen her for at least six years.

Rites of Passage in the Americas

Indiana man jailed, accused of forcing 7-year-old daughter to kill pet cat

Fri Mar 14, 8:43 AM

By The Associated Press

MUNCIE, Ind. - An Indiana father is behind bars for allegedly forcing his seven-year old daughter to kill the family's cat, named boot.

According to the arrest affidavit, Danield Collins said he wanted his children to "learn how to kill."

Police say Collins gave his son the knife first, but the 11-year-old boy hid the cat and put ketchup on the knife to simulate blood.

They say when the father realized the cat was still alive, he forced the knife into his daughter's hand and made her stab the cat.

Police say Collins finally stabbed and strangled the cat himself, and had his son throw the carcass in the trash.

The children, who live with their grandparents, say their father was drunk when he came for a visit. Collins is being held on $40,000 bond on charges of animal cruelty, battery and child neglect.

Anal Erotic Anxiety in America

State passes droopy pants law

Fri Mar 14, 10:47 AM

TALLAHASSEE, Florida (Reuters) - The Florida Senate wants public school students to pull up their pants. Lawmakers passed a bill Thursday that could mean suspensions for students with droopy britches.

It won't become law unless the House of Representatives passes a companion measure.

Florida could join several southern U.S. towns and cities that have passed "saggy pants" laws aimed at outlawing what some teenagers consider a fashion statement -- wearing pants half way down their buttocks, exposing flesh or underwear.

Supporters say schools sometimes don't properly police dress codes and parents are often "under aware" of what their kids are wearing to school.

Critics say the measure is unnecessary, arguing that appearance and dress codes should be the responsibility of school districts and parents.

Despite being the butt of jokes, the bill's sponsor, Orlando Sen. Gary Siplin, a Democrat, has said the fashion statement has a back-story -- it was made popular by rap artists after first appearing among prison inmates as a signal they were looking for sex.

"All we're trying to do now is trying to inform folks that we have a fad now that does not have a very good origination," Siplin said. "We're trying to make an example in school," he added, saying it would help students get jobs and a degree.

The Florida city of Riviera Beach passed its own saggy pants law Tuesday, with a maximum penalty of 60 days in jail for repeat offenders.

(Reporting by Michael Peltier, editing by Jim Loney and Todd Eastham)

New Sins

Vatican official updates ways of sinning: drugs, pollution, genetic manipulation

Mon Mar 10, 2:24 PM

By Frances D'Emilio, The Associated Press

VATICAN CITY - Sinning has gone global, according to a Vatican official who has singled out genetic experiments, pollution and mind-damaging drugs as among today's new sins.

Also receiving fresh attention by the Vatican are society's injustices, along the lines of the age-old maxim: "The rich get richer while the poor get poorer."

After last year's "Ten Commandments" against road rage and other sins committed behind the wheel, the Vatican has provided its latest update on how God's law is being violated with modern means.

"The poor are always becoming poorer and the rich ever more rich, feeding unsustainable social injustice," Msgr. Gianfranco Girotti, head of the Apostolic Penitentiary, told the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano in an interview published Sunday.

Girotti was asked what, in his opinion, are the "new sins."

He cited "violations of the basic rights of human nature" through genetic manipulation; drugs which "weaken the mind and cloud intelligence" as well as imbalances between rich and poor.

"If yesterday sin had a rather individualistic dimension, today it has a weight, a resonance, that's especially social, rather than individual," said the monsignor, whose office deals with matters of conscience and grants absolution.

Vatican officials stressed that Girotti's comments broke no new ground on what constitutes sin.

Both Pope Benedict and the late Pope John Paul II frequently expressed concern about the environment. Under Benedict's papacy, Vatican engineers developed plans for some Holy See buildings to use solar energy, including photovoltaic cells on the roof of the auditorium for pilgrims' audiences with the pontiff.

John Paul dedicated much of his long papacy to condemning the gap between have and have-nots in speeches in his travels throughout the world as well as in writings.

Closer to home, Girotti was asked about the many "situations of scandal and sin within the church," in what appeared to be a reference to allegations of sexual abuse by clergy of minors and coverups by the church hierarchy.

Girotti acknowledged the "objective gravity" of the allegations, but said the heavy coverage by of the scandals by the mass media must also be denounced because it "discredits the church."

Benedict has been leading the Vatican's campaign against abortion, and Girotti was asked about the "widespread perception" that the church does not consider the "difficult" predicament of women.

Girotti rejected that view, saying that Catholic organizations help unwed mothers, educating "their children who come into the world because of their lack of foresight" and facilitating adoption.

Last year, the Vatican took on the social problem of road accidents, issuing a kind of "Ten Commandments" for drivers against the sins of road rage, alcohol abuse and even rudeness behind the wheel.

Morbid Oeconomics

Canadian cult killer's prison art for auction on U.S. 'murderabilia' website

Sun Mar 9, 5:22 PM

By Dean Beeby, The Canadian Press

OTTAWA - The prison artwork of a notorious Canadian killer is being offered for sale on an American website that promotes criminals as celebrities.

More than half a dozen items produced by cult killer Roch Theriault at the Dorchester Penitentiary in New Brunswick are up for auction on MurderAuction.com, which specializes in so-called 'murderabilia'.

Collectors can bid for oil paintings, pastels, signed handprints and even short poems written out and coloured by Theriault, who's serving a life sentence after being convicted of a brutal murder in 1993.

The charismatic leader of a tiny religious group near Burnt River, Ont., between 1977 and 1989, Theriault chopped off the hand of one of his concubines and killed his wife by disembowelling her.

A television movie about his bizarre cult, which was modelled on Old Testament themes and attracted up to a dozen adult followers, was titled "Savage Messiah". It was broadcast in 2002, the same year the National Parole Board turned down his first bid for day parole.

"Cult leader Roch Theriault is one of the craziest and sickest criminal(s) in Canadian history," the anonymous Canadian-based seller of the artwork - identified only as Redrum's Autographs - declares on the website.

"Theriault's artwork is extremely rare as he doesn't write to anyone but family."

The art being auctioned is abstract or contains inoffensive images such as flowers, and dates from October and November 2007. Minimum bids range from US$20 to US$500.

The three-year-old website is one of the earliest to create a specialized marketplace for crime memorabilia, which has generally been banned from mainstream sites such as EBay.

MurderAuction.com founder Tod Bohannon makes no apologies, saying it's merely a branch of the well-established hobby of collecting celebrity autographs.

Bohannon, 30, began collecting criminals' signatures at age 13, when he first wrote to notorious prisoners. His large collection now includes a few choice Theriault pieces, as well as some prison memorabilia from Canadian child-murderer Clifford Olsen.

"More than anything, it's about getting to know someone who's looking for a friend," Bohannon said in an interview from his home in Cornelia, Ga., where he teaches kindergarten by day.

His advice for crime victims who might object to the website? "If my site's hurting you, just don't go to it."

So-called 'Son of Sam' laws in the United States, designed to prevent criminals from profiting from their notoriety through big film and book deals, have been challenged on constitutional grounds and in any case do not target crime memorabilia.

A bill was introduced in the U.S. Congress last fall to try to curtail the trade in crime memorabilia, although observers say it's unlikely to have much impact even if it's passed.

A spokesman for Corrections Canada said there appear to be no similar laws in this country preventing the trade in "murderabilia".

"I don't believe there's any legislation in Canada that goes to that effect," Guy Campeau said in an interview.

Corrections Canada does have the legal authority to forbid a prisoner from producing works that are obscene or offensive, constitute hate literature, or pose a risk to safety or security.

"We're aware of the website, but it's not within our mandate or jurisdiction to deal with these issues," Campeau said. "After it's out in the public, well obviously the Correctional Service doesn't have any mandate or jurisdiction to intervene on this."

Campeau added that the department is nevertheless reviewing the case.

Theriault is still visited regularly by some of his former cult "wives," who have moved to New Brunswick to be close to him and have borne him more children following conjugal visits.

One of Theriault's best-known victims, Gabrielle Lavallee, was not immediately available for comment. Lavallee, who had her hand chopped off by a meat cleaver, wrote a best-selling French-language account of her time with Theriault, "L'alliance de la brebis," or "The Alliance of Sheep," in which she denounces him as an incurable, sadistic psychopath.

Theriault's poems for sale are brief and in French, such as "Le regret, c'est de ne plus jamais recommence" ("Regret is to never be able to do it again"), dated last October.

Bohannon's website says Theriault, who believed himself to be a reincarnation of Moses, was in a coma for a month last fall. Campeau said he is restricted by law from providing any personal information on individual inmates.

MurderAuction.com also offers a signed prison letter from Clifford Olsen. Bohannon said his personal collection includes some awards Olsen received in prison for winning 100-metre and 500-metre races.

The Ludicrous War

UN anti-drugs tsar criticises celebrities for fuelling Africa's problems

Sun Mar 9, 9:48 AM

LONDON (AFP) - The United Nations' anti-drugs chief attacked celebrities like singer Amy Winehouse and supermodel Kate Moss, saying they fuel problems in Africa by allegedly taking drugs in an interview Sunday.

Antonio Maria Costa, executive director of the UN's Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), said some stars were sending out the wrong message on drugs, which he linked to violence and corruption.

He contrasted this approach with that of singers Bono and Bob Geldof, both campaigners against poverty in Africa, and stars who have worked against the blood diamond trade, highlighted in the 2006 film of the same name.

"While some glitterati are trying to save Africa, others are contributing to its demise," Costa wrote in the Observer newspaper.

"Coke-snorting fashionistas are not only damaging their noses and their brains -- they are contributing to state failure on the other side of the world.

"Amy Winehouse might adopt a defiant pose and slur her way through 'Rehab' (her hit single) but does she realise the message she sends to others who are vulnerable to addiction and who cannot afford expensive treatment?

"Are such stars who flaunt their drug use aware of the damage caused by the trafficking of cocaine from South America via Africa to Europe?"

He added: "For every rebel with a cause, there are 10 others without a clue.

"While some well-meaning pop idols and film stars might rage against suffering in Africa, their work is being undermined by the drug habits of careless peers such as Kate Moss."

Costa said that supplies of drugs from South America bound for Europe often pass through west Africa because governments there cannot mount effective security operations against drug traders.

The drugs trade there "is causing untold misery, corruption, violence and instability," he added.

His comments come in the wake of last week's UN report which warned that letting celebrities get away with drug crimes sends out the wrong message to impressionable young people.

The International Narcotics Control Board report did not name names but said famous people who break the law should be treated the same as non-celebrities.

A spokesman for Winehouse, Chris Goodman, described Costa as "a ludicrous man" in response to the comments, the Observer reported.

"Amy has never given a quote about drugs or flaunted it in any way. She's had some problems and is trying to get better. The UN should get its own house in order," he was quoted as saying.

Winehouse has recently been attending a rehabilitation centre.

Moss's spokesperson was not immediately contactable for comment.

Political Suicide in Japan

Protester commits suicide outside Japan parliament: police

1 hour, 23 minutes ago

TOKYO (AFP) - A suspected right-wing activist committed suicide by shooting himself in the head in front of Japan's parliament on Wednesday in apparent protest against Japan's warming ties with China, police said.

Sporting a navy blue suit, the man went to parliament in a taxi, got off outside the south gate and immediately shot himself at 8:15 am (2315 GMT Tuesday), police and a witness said.

The man, believed to be in his 60s, was confirmed dead a little over an hour later, a police spokesman said.

The suspected activist carried a letter addressed to Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda discussing his diplomacy with China, the abductions of Japanese nationals by North Korea and a row over a war shrine, media reports said.

He also had another letter addressed to the media, news reports said.

Fukuda, known for his close ties with China, has worked to repair relations with Beijing that have been tense in recent years.

Fukuda has refused to visit the Yasukuni shrine, seen by China as a symbol of Japan's militarist past as it enshrines 2.5 million war dead, including war criminals.

The shrine in central Tokyo is a rallying ground for Japanese conservatives. Junichiro Koizumi went to the shrine each year during his 2001-2006 premiership, angering China and South Korea.

Fukuda, who took over in September, has also toned down his predecessor Shinzo Abe's hardline campaign against North Korea.

Japan has tense ties with Pyongyang in part due to the communist regime's kidnapping of Japanese civilians in the 1970s and 1980s to train its spies.

Japan has seen a series of cases of right-wing activists attempting public suicide.

In February, a right-wing activist stabbed himself with a kitchen knife after hurling a makeshift firebomb at the foreign ministry. He survived with light injuries.

Biblical Drug Use

Tue Mar 4, 7:03 AM

JERUSALEM (AFP) - High on Mount Sinai, Moses was on psychedelic drugs when he heard God deliver the Ten Commandments, an Israeli researcher claimed in a study published this week.

Such mind-altering substances formed an integral part of the religious rites of Israelites in biblical times, Benny Shanon, a professor of cognitive psychology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem wrote in the Time and Mind journal of philosophy.

"As far Moses on Mount Sinai is concerned, it was either a supernatural cosmic event, which I don't believe, or a legend, which I don't believe either, or finally, and this is very probable, an event that joined Moses and the people of Israel under the effect of narcotics," Shanon told Israeli public radio on Tuesday.

Moses was probably also on drugs when he saw the "burning bush," suggested Shanon, who said he himself has dabbled with such substances.

"The Bible says people see sounds, and that is a clasic phenomenon," he said citing the example of religious ceremonies in the Amazon in which drugs are used that induce people to "see music."

He mentioned his own experience when he used ayahuasca, a powerful psychotropic plant, during a religious ceremony in Brazil's Amazon forest in 1991. "I experienced visions that had spiritual-religious connotations," Shanon said.

He said the psychedelic effects of ayahuasca were comparable to those produced by concoctions based on bark of the acacia tree, that is frequently mentioned in the Bible.

Traditional Mutilation Rights

FREETOWN (AFP) - Some 800 women in the Sierra Leone town of Kailahun paraded Tuesday in favour of genital mutilation and told donors opposed to the practice to keep their money, demonstrators and witnesses said.

Women wearing colourful beads and adorned with seashells chanted songs in the local dialect that warned authorities and foreign organisations against "any attempt to take away our traditional ritual."

Kailahun is a dusty town about 300 kilometres (185 miles) east of Freetown, in a part of the west African country regarded by human rights groups as the heartland of female genital mutilation (FGM).

The UN World Health Organisation says FGM -- the partial or total removal of the external female genitalia and related injury -- is recorded in 28 African nations and opposes the practice on medical grounds.

The traditional Bondo Society organised the rally as a "show of strength", said executive member Mamie Banya. "Any organisation that has accepted funds from overseas donors to wage war against FGM is fighting a losing battle. Let donors keep their money, we will keep our culture."

A group called the National Emancipation for Progress has led workshops and seminars to have FGM banned in Sierra Leone, but faces opposition from people who hold the practice is harmless, promotes marital fidelity and is in tune with religious values.

"We have inherited this culture over 100 years ago and it has made us women be responsible housewives to our husbands," one demonstrator in the noisy march told AFP by telephone.

Another demonstrator, teacher Sally Kwapika, said "we love FGM as a culture in the past, today and tomorrow. I am appealing to the president that if he wants us to stop supporting him, let him advocate for an end to FGM."

Asked how the Bondo Society would respond if the Freetown government outlawed the practice like several others in Africa, Banya said: "We will become uncontrollable. Past governments have not interfered directly in our society. Why only now?"

New Fashions for Police Dogs

BERLIN (Reuters) - Police dogs in the German city of Duesseldorf are being fitted out with blue rubber shoes to protect their paws while walking the beat.

"The dogs aren't too keen yet, but with a few weeks' training they should be used to them," Andre Hartwich, a spokesman for police in the western city, said Monday.

Hartwich said shards of glass and sharp objects get stuck between the cobbles of Duesseldorf's old town and are dangerous for the canine squad.

"The shoes will protect their paws on patrol," he said.

Some 20 German shepherds are being taught to walk and work with their new footwear in time for a police fashion show in March.

The blue synthetic rubber shoes, modeled on a design made for sled-pulling Canadian huskies, will cost about 15 euros ($22.22) each, he said.

(Reporting by Sarah Roberts, editing by Dave Graham and Mary Gabriel)

Risk-free Warfare

Automated killer robots 'threat to humanity': expert

Tue Feb 26, 8:44 PM

PARIS (AFP) - Increasingly autonomous, gun-totting robots developed for warfare could easily fall into the hands of terrorists and may one day unleash a robot arms race, a top expert on artificial intelligence told AFP.

"They pose a threat to humanity," said University of Sheffield professor Noel Sharkey ahead of a keynote address Wednesday before Britain's Royal United Services Institute.

Intelligent machines deployed on battlefields around the world -- from mobile grenade launchers to rocket-firing drones -- can already identify and lock onto targets without human help.

There are more than 4,000 US military robots on the ground in Iraq, as well as unmanned aircraft that have clocked hundreds of thousands of flight hours.

The first three armed combat robots fitted with large-caliber machine guns deployed to Iraq last summer, manufactured by US arms maker Foster-Miller, proved so successful that 80 more are on order, said Sharkey.

But up to now, a human hand has always been required to push the button or pull the trigger.

It we are not careful, he said, that could change.

Military leaders "are quite clear that they want autonomous robots as soon as possible, because they are more cost-effective and give a risk-free war," he said.

Several countries, led by the United States, have already invested heavily in robot warriors developed for use on the battlefield.

South Korea and Israel both deploy armed robot border guards, while China, India, Russia and Britain have all increased the use of military robots.

Washington plans to spend four billion dollars by 2010 on unmanned technology systems, with total spending expected rise to 24 billion, according to the Department of Defense's Unmanned Systems Roadmap 2007-2032, released in December.

James Canton, an expert on technology innovation and CEO of the Institute for Global Futures, predicts that deployment within a decade of detachments that will include 150 soldiers and 2,000 robots.

The use of such devices by terrorists should be a serious concern, said Sharkey.

Captured robots would not be difficult to reverse engineer, and could easily replace suicide bombers as the weapon-of-choice. "I don't know why that has not happened already," he said.

But even more worrisome, he continued, is the subtle progression from the semi-autonomous military robots deployed today to fully independent killing machines.

"I have worked in artificial intelligence for decades, and the idea of a robot making decisions about human termination terrifies me," Sharkey said.

Ronald Arkin of Georgia Institute of Technology, who has worked closely with the US military on robotics, agrees that the shift towards autonomy will be gradual.

But he is not convinced that robots don't have a place on the front line.

"Robotics systems may have the potential to out-perform humans from a perspective of the laws of war and the rules of engagement," he told a conference on technology in warfare at Stanford University last month.

The sensors of intelligent machines, he argued, may ultimately be better equipped to understand an environment and to process information. "And there are no emotions that can cloud judgement, such as anger," he added.

Nor is there any inherent right to self-defence.

For now, however, there remain several barriers to the creation and deployment of Terminator-like killing machines.

Some are technical. Teaching a computer-driven machine -- even an intelligent one -- how to distinguish between civilians and combatants, or how to gauge a proportional response as mandated by the Geneva Conventions, is simply beyond the reach of artificial intelligence today.

But even if technical barriers are overcome, the prospect of armies increasingly dependent on remotely-controlled or autonomous robots raises a host of ethical issues that have barely been addressed.

Arkin points out that the US Department of Defense's 230 billion dollar Future Combat Systems programme -- the largest military contract in US history -- provides for three classes of aerial and three land-based robotics systems.

"But nowhere is there any consideration of the ethical implications of the weaponisation of these systems," he said.

For Sharkey, the best solution may be an outright ban on autonomous weapons systems. "We have to say where we want to draw the line and what we want to do -- and then get an international agreement," he said.

Mass Trance: Contagious Crowds

Mass trance afflicts Indonesian women, factory workers

Sun Feb 24, 8:24 PM

By Sunanda Creagh

JAKARTA (Reuters) - Lina, a former worker at a cigarette factory in Indonesia, says she was 17-years-old the first time she was possessed by an evil spirit.

"My older sister went down first. She was screaming and her body went rigid and she couldn't move. Then the spirit came into my body too," said Lina, who like many Indonesians has one name.

Reports of schoolchildren, young women and factory workers going into mass trances or speaking in tongues are common across Indonesia's vast archipelago of 226 million people.

The phenomenon may provide an outlet for stress, some experts say. In many cultures, it is part of a religious or spiritual experience, whether in the voodoo trances of Haiti, the mass hysteria of Europe's witch trials, or Christianity's exorcisms.

Earlier this month, local news station Metro TV broadcast footage of 11 students and five teachers in a mass trance at a school in the central island of Sumbawa.

Around 50 female workers at a garment factory in Tangerang, near Jakarta, went into a collective trance last June, weeping and jerking their bodies around, according to Tempo magazine.

"Every society has some kind of culturally appropriate place for trance experiences, usually in religious settings," said Tanya Luhrmann, a Stamford University anthropologist who studies witchcraft and evangelical Christianity, where such group faintings are common.

"There appears to be a contagion element to trance, but it really requires some kind of willingness on the part of the individual," she said in an emailed reply to questions, adding that this was the case even if it seemed unconscious or unwilled.

In trance, people can do and say things for which they are unlikely to be held responsible, which can be cathartic, particularly for weaker members of society, she said.

BALINESE TRANCE

Religion, education and development have done little to budge widespread acceptance of the supernatural among Indonesia's diverse ethnic and religious groups.

"In Indonesia, trance is tied up with culture," said Lidia Laksana Hidajat, research coordinator in the psychology faculty of Jakarta's Atma Jaya University.

"We know that there are traditional trance dances in Bali but this is already a modern world. Indonesia is developing very fast but it still happens all the time," said Hidajat, who has been researching mass trance in Indonesia.

Few Indonesians are comfortable discussing their trance experiences, but Lina, now 23, said she had been possessed many times in the past six years, always by the same djinn.

"Its face is exactly the same face as my older sister but the body is hard to make out. It calls my name but if I follow it, it disappears," she said.

Lina said that mass trances were so common at the cigarette factory in Malang where she worked that she eventually quit.

Indonesian media reported a group trance among workers at Bentoel's cigarette factory in Malang, Java, in March 2006. Hidajat interviewed 30 of the affected women for her research.

"They told me that when it happened, they were sitting in a very long hall, working together in rows, rolling the cigarettes by hand," she said.

"They were working in silence. That's one of the requirements of a trance to happen -- it's usually quiet and when they are engaged in monotonous activity."

Suddenly, one of the workers started screaming and her body went stiff. The one next to her started crying and went stiff too. Others tried to help but soon they started too in a kind of domino effect.

A local Muslim leader was summoned, but his prayers had no effect. Eventually, the exhausted women fell asleep and when they awoke they remembered nothing.

VULNERABLE PERSONALITY

Hidajat concluded that the mass trance had more to do with exhaustion and stress than evil spirits.

She says that there were many common factors between the trance victims she interviewed.

"Often they are people who are very religious or under pressure. They were also from low socio-economic backgrounds and many said they didn't have happy childhoods," she said.

"All the trance dancers I met in Bali had similar vulnerable personalities."

Eko Susanto Marsoeki, director of Malang's Lawang Psychiatric Hospital, said overwork was closely linked to mass trance incidents in factories.

"Usually this happens to people who had problems in their childhood and to people who are working too hard. It's a form of dissociation, a kind of hysteria," he said.

"They can't protest, but they can protest via a mass trance. So often it is a form of protest that will not be dealt with too harshly," he said.

When more than 30 high school students at Kalimantan's Pahandut Palangka Raya High School fell into a trance in November, they blamed a spirit living in a nearby tree.

During the morning flag-raising ceremony, one of the girls suddenly started screaming and couldn't move. Soon her friends joined in until more than 30 of them were screaming and fainting, the deputy principal Friskila told Reuters.

Some of the girls woke from the trance after a student played a Muslim prayer ring tone on her mobile phone. Others were taken by their parents to local witch doctors.

Friskila, however, favors a less superstitious explanation.

"They are bored, tired and then this happened, she said. They all got a day off school."

(Editing by Sara Webb and Megan Goldin)